Monday, August 18, 2014

All fans want a team that might, somehow, win a World Series. But there is another baseball gift to a city, one that keeps giving cumulative pleasure, that competes with titles in its satisfaction. It’s the kind of sustainability that provides winning or contending teams for a decade, or in a few lucky cases, 20 years or more. Such marvels don’t just appear in New York or Los Angeles. Fans in St. Louis, Boston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Oakland, Baltimore and others can tell about it, even if some have to think back a bit.

Could that be happening in D.C.? In a sense, it’s a more controllable dream than talking about crowns which, in baseball, sometimes fall on your head in October as much as you place them there yourself. Data point: Entering Sunday, over the last three years the Nationals have the second-best winning percentage in baseball, behind Oakland and slightly ahead of the Braves, Cards and Dodgers. That D.C., the sport’s unwanted relative for so long, is in such a position may qualify as “delicious irony.”

What’s coming into focus is that the Nats’ organization, from smart drafting and player development through judicious trades and free agent signings, looks better than the Nats’ star power.

Just who are these guys not named Harper or Strasburg or Zimmerman (one “n”)? (You clearly haven’t been paying enough attention.)

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I don't know. I guarantee you that three years ago, almost every Phillies fan thought that they would be on top of the world for years and years to come. We all know what happened: they fell apart practically overnight, and now they're a bunch of hopeless, washed up old has-beens who are unfathomably putting off their inevitable rebuilding in the forlorn hopes of a last hurrah that isn't coming.

Dynasties are extremely rare, and windows almost never last as long as people want to believe. Some key members of the team like Zimmerman, Werth, and LaRoche are getting old fast, and there's no guarantee we're going to be able to keep all our really good young players long term. The window to win is right now.

The Phillies won 5 straight division titles, went to the World Series two times, and won a world championship. That's about as good as you can hope for these days because of the fact that teams can now afford to pay their own stars for the most part.

The Nationals would be lucky to have a run as good. Really any team would.

I don't know, in 2011 the Phillies core (Howard, Utley, Rollins) were in their early 30s, and Utley in the middle of his second straight injury plagued year. I think reasonable hopes could have been pinned on Halladay, Hamels, Lee and Oswalt giving you some more years, but in 2011 the Phillies looked a lot like a team that was at the tail end of their run. There didn't seem to be much in the way of young talent coming up, and even the secondary help (Ruiz and Victorino) were past 30.

The Nationals are a bit all over the place in that guys like Werth and LaRoche are likely in the winding down phase of their careers (not sure you can expect them to play as well in the future as they are playing now). Ryan Zimmerman is young enough on paper but looks like he's heading to an Eric Chavez type career. If not quite as good as Philadelphia's All-Star rotation, the Nats pitchers are younger (which may not mean that much when it comes to pitchers) and pretty good themselves. The key difference is probably that the Nationals at least have Harper and Rendon, and support guys like Desmond and Ramos (though big health question I think) are young enough that if this current iteration of the Nats falls apart in 2015 you have something to build with and could get back on the horse quickly. The danger of the 2011 Phillies is that there was no visible future there.

All that said, now is no time to bank on the future, go win.

EDIT: I was a bit ambiguous there, didn't mean to argue against the Phillies having a good run, they certainly did.

The Phillies won 5 straight division titles, went to the World Series two times, and won a world championship. That's about as good as you can hope for these days because of the fact that teams can now afford to pay their own stars for the most part.

The Nationals would be lucky to have a run as good. Really any team would.

I completely agree with this, and yet almost every Phillies fan I've talked to seems to be unsatisfied with what they achieved and feels like they should have done more.

Even one championship always ought to be greatly appreciated, because there are cities like Cleveland and Washington that haven't won one in forever.

When has a fan in Philly ever felt satisfied for more than a week or two?

True. I'll never forget the shameful way they kneecapped Charlie Manuel last year as soon as it was apparent the wheels were falling off. Probably the most classless move a MLB team has pulled since Steinbrenner died.

I think the reason Phillies fans do -- and should -- not feel satisfied is they could have done even better if not for the utter stupidity of the Howard extension, and so many moves that followed. Howard was already under control through the end of his positive value (he was below average but at least above replacement), and the money committed meant that they had to dump Lee, let Werth and Victorino go, replacing them all with lesser players, get Polanco instead of a real 3B to save money, etc. With a competent GM, they

(a) could have extended the window of contention at least a year forward
(b) could have done better in the years of contention:

* in 2010, they lost to the Giants 4-2 in the LCS, one of those losses was a one-run game started by Blanton instead of Lee
* in 2011, they lost to the Cards 3-2 in the LDS, Howard, Pence (replacing Werth at significant cost in prospects), and Polanco were awful, a combined 8-57 with 1 XBH
* in 2012, Howard and Wigginton were a combined -2.7 WAR, Pence (before being traded) and Polanco were as far below average as above replacement level

Werth? He wasn't very good in 2011 and played only half a season in 2012. Outbidding the Nationals' mega 7 year contract would have been a better option?

Than Howard? Yes. Signing Werth to the Nats contract +1 would have been better than the Howard contract. Now, I have a bit of a disconnect with the argument "the Phillies could have maintained their mini-dynasty if they hadn't been the Phillies" and the idea that "if they had done all of these things that look good in hindsight it would have been fine," but on the simple comp of Werth vs Howard, you obviously go with Werth there.

But there is another baseball gift to a city, one that keeps giving cumulative pleasure, that competes with titles in its satisfaction. It’s the kind of sustainability that provides winning or contending teams for a decade, or in a few lucky cases, 20 years or more. Such marvels don’t just appear in New York or Los Angeles. Fans in St. Louis, Boston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Oakland, Baltimore and others can tell about it, even if some have to think back a bit.

This I have not heard of. The Padres once went 3 or 4 years in a row with winning teams, does that count?